This is a classic definition of what constitutes a genuine redundancy, which is of course a complete jurisdictional defence by an employer to an unfair dismissal claim.
“[8] Under s 385 of the Act, a dismissal cannot be unfair if it was a case of genuine redundancy, which is defined in s 389 as follows:
(1) A person’s dismissal was a case of genuine redundancy if:
(a) the person’s employer no longer required the person’s job to be performed by anyone because of changes in the operational requirements of the employer’s enterprise; and
(b) the employer has complied with any obligation in a modern award or enterprise agreement that applied to the employment to consult about the redundancy.
(2) A person’s dismissal was not a case of genuine redundancy if it would have been reasonable in all the circumstances for the person to be redeployed within:
(a) the employer’s enterprise; or
(b) the enterprise of an associated entity of the employer.
[9] Section 389 of the Act was recently considered by the High Court in Helensburgh Coal Pty Ltd v Bartley.6 Steward J relevantly explained as follows:7
128 Section 389(1)(a) has two parts. The first turns on the existence of a decision in fact made by an employer. It is the decision to no longer require a person’s job to be performed by anyone. That is a choice which cannot be set aside or second-guessed. It is one reserved to the employer to make and no-one else. But it can only be made for a particular reason.
129 The second part of s 389(1)(a) supplies that reason. It is that the job has ceased to be needed “because of changes in the operational requirements of the employer’s enterprise”. However, an employer is at liberty to determine what
those changes might be, or if they are needed. That is because it is the employer’s “enterprise” which is in issue. The decision to make changes is not qualified by any requirement of reasonableness, and it cannot otherwise be challenged in the FW Commission, assuming it to be genuine. It is in that sense that the capacity to render a position redundant has been likened to an employer’s “prerogative”. As Ryan J observed in Jones v Department of Energy and Minerals:
“[I]t is within the employer’s prerogative to rearrange the organisational structure by breaking up the collection of functions, duties and responsibilities attached to a single position and distributing them among the holders of other positions, including newly-created positions.”
(citations omitted)
Was Mrs Arbon’s job no longer required to be performed by anyone because of changes in the
operational requirements of the respondent’s enterprise?
[10] As the plurality in Helensburgh Coal said, s 389(1)(a) of the Act – which considers whether the job is no longer required to be performed – “does not look to whether the employee’s position, in terms of job title, was no longer required, but whether their ‘job’, in the sense of the nature of the work they performed, was no longer required. Section 389(1) refers to a decision by the employer and no one else”.8
Arbon v AHB Group Pty Ltd [2025] FWC 3470 delivered 20 November 2025 per Millhouse DP